Tomorrow is the Space Coast Marathon. The Space Coast Marathon was the first, and at present only, marathon I’ve ever run; way back in 2012. About a year ago I decided to try to run it again in an attempt to run it three times and get a bonus medal. That was a scaled back version of the original “plan” to run it every year and get all seven medals as part of a series. After a solid start for a few weeks then half assing it a few more the whole plan crumbled. After countless weeks of not doing any exercise at all I decided to do some light yoga and go for a couple mile walk yesterday and today I’m feeling tightness everywhere and an irritated knee. The day before I was supposed to run 26.2 miles I can’t even do a workout routine that most people in their end years can do or walk (not run) even a tenth that distance. I’m not pissed, I’m just over it.

It’s not that being able to run a marathon makes you fit. There are marathon runners that die of heart attacks, have major joint problems, et cetera. Of course *not* being able to run a marathon doesn’t mean you are fit either. But at this point I couldn’t even run a 5K or a 10K. My strength, flexibility, cardiovascular fitness, and so on are back in the toilet. Something in the 2011/2012 time frame really had me going strong with running and for the first time in my life actually enjoying exercising. Every year after that has been at best doing fitness in fits and starts, and it shows.

I don’t need to be in marathon training shape, but I do need to be at some level of fitness in excess of where I am now. As I have probably lamented before, this is the age where it is most important for me to keep up on body maintenance. While it’s important to do so throughout ones life, this is the beginning of the declining years. The body is resilient and can make up for a lot of bad behaviors, but every year after your 30s it gets harder and harder to build back up. Every time I try to get back into working out, albeit briefly, I’m quickly reminded directly of this fact. If I don’t get my shit together I may be able to live into my 100s but it’d be as a part-bionic pharmaceutical held together miserable mess. That’s not what I had in mind for my objective.